Why didn’t anybody tell me this movie was about a queer interracial romance amidst a psychically haunted juvenile detention center? The writing of this movie is not great--not enough time to do justice to some psychologically complex trauma as channeled through an extremely ethnically and socioeconomically diverse group--but man oh man, it is crying out for some fic. I think I liked this, actually?
Funnily enough, the New Mutants series was prior to my plunge into comic books, and somehow I don’t know much except Emma Frost and...uh...they were basically the earliest iteration of X-Force. But this film feels like they got all Legion on it, and I have mixed feelings. (I am somewhat charmed by Lockheed-as-hand-puppet, I’ll admit. But is it possible to draw a line from this movie’s Illyana to Deadpool’s Colossus?) The actors are good across the board, though, and overall the feel is pretty creepy.
Finally: I had stopped following the books on a regular basis before Reyes made her appearance, but based on every time she’s shown up to my notice, I cannot tell whether she is supposed to be evil or simply lawful neutral. Given the core thing I know about her is she helped Beast create a mutant “cure,” her working for Essex makes sense, I guess?
The Old Guard, 28 November 2020, streamed via Netflix
I legit had no idea how to care about this movie at first. Like, it starred many folks that I like? The concept of immortal warriors is pretty cool? But it seemed pretty generically war-and-angst, with a welcome dosage of “Charlize Theron does fighting.” Then that shot of them all slowly staggering up after being executed by a firing squad and then executing them back was, well. Dang. (Remember that one montage from that one Wolverine movie with Logan and Victor just slaughtering their way through every war in recent memory?) And then they all dreamed about Nile, a new immortal, awakening? Then Theron introduced herself as Andromache the Scythian? OKAY, FINE. YOU GOT ME. The fight choreography is unbelievable and the characters feel real and lived-in. And the soundtrack slaps.
Anyway, if we don’t get a sequel with Quynh-the-Vengeful, I will RIOT.
The Wandering Earth, 29 November 2020, streamed via Netflix
The Netflix autoplay for this was an English dub, and while I have nothing against dubs as a concept (especially since I tend to multitask), I immediately switched it back to Mandarin for some reason. The sound felt too obviously overlaid, I think?
Anyway, THE SUN GOES OUT. Or, well, goes supernova and then goes out. So everybody just decides to, like, move the planet to another solar system. They build “Earth engines” across the globe, put the surviving planetary population in underground cities beneath the engines, train a workforce to maintain the engines on the frozen surface, and then send a bunch of astronauts onto a satellite space station to keep an eye on progress. Seventeen years later--when the movie proper takes place--Jupiter’s gravity sends everything awry, and we’ve got a pretty straightforward disaster movie going on. Meanwhile, up on the space station, the station AI seemingly goes rogue, keeping all the astronauts in hibernation--and ignorance--in order to complete its mission, so we’ve got a whole ‘nother movie going on up there.
If these are your kind of movies, then OH MAN, this is your kind of movie. Keep it on the dubbed English movie if you must, but this is a worthy watch. It hits every genre beat with a delightful vengeance.
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